Confessions From The Bookshelves

WELCOME

Welcome to another wonderful blog in the growing community of KingsCrossBlogs. These linked blogs reveal the the heart and soul of this vibrant bohemian district. You are invited to enjoy the many stories of our world and to leave your comments, or e-mail us the story of your Kings Cross experience. Down the track we plan to publish a selection of these in a blog of their own. Meanwhile, happy reading, and all the best from the exciting Kings Cross community.

KINGS CROSS WEBSITES

GoFigure.net.auWebsite of an artwork by local artist, Tony Johansen, the first cross-media Archibald Prize entry.

TonyJohansen.comPaintings, sculpture, poetry, and photography, of a Kings Cross artist.

RosieTheMusical.com.auOfficial website for the new musical by Stannard & Hatherley, based on the life of Kings Cross identity Rose Shaw.

SydneyHensNight.comA special idea for a quality bride's hens night: a real figure drawing class in a local art school.

TapGallery.org.auTap Gallery, and its heroine, Lesley Dimmick has hosted exhibitions, performance and theatre for thousands of emerging artists over the last 16 years.

RealRefuses.comCalled the 'Democratic Archibald' the exhibition hosts rejected work from the Archibald Prize. This is the official website.

KingsCrossOnLine.com.auThe official Kings Cross Partnership web-site. The indispensible resource for Restaurants and bars, business, services, and entertainment in the Kings Cross area, for visitors and locals alike.

KINGS CROSS BLOGS

Blog-O-licious Kings Cross (Home Page)Your base camp for blogging info, rules, definitions, invitations to blog and more. Here you learn all about KingsCrossBlogs and how you can be part of it too.

Rosie: Pure InspirationA new musical by Stannard & Hatherley based on the life of a real life flower seller who sang arias to her customers while she dreamed of being a star.

Jest A JokeJokes and humor collected on the streets of Kings Cross and looking for a laugh or two.

The Passionate LibrarianThis very special local can't help but be passionate about the piano, the marathon, and the special books she discovers lost in the 'stacks', that special book heaven where book treasures await discovery...

Archibald Prize ChallengeOfficial Website for the Legal Challenge (still ongoing) to the 2004 Archibald Prize award. For all the issues, the latest news, background info, and questions answered click here.

Landscape Classes In SydneySaturday is Landscape day at East Sydney Academy of Art, this is the journal from this enthusiastic group of artists.

CREATIVE PAINTING and ART CLASSESThe process of painting from the idea to the finished composition. Art Classes for beginners to learn the basics and advanced artist's to learn the methods of the Old Masters and apply that knowledge to conteporary art.

Hens Nights The BlogWe all know Kings Cross is the best place to party, but you may be surprised at how these brides celebrate their special party.

The Kings Cross Art WallOne small wall at the Neighbourhood Service Center can display just a few artworks by individual Kings Cross artist's. They all go on this site however where the tapestry of Kings Cross artists weaves together into an online exhibition for the world to enjoy.

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LIBRARIAN STATCOUNTER

Working in a library is to be surrounded by a seemingly limitless, hidden beauty. Each workday I travel around the library filling my appointed, mostly dry tasks. I open a volume to complete some clerical duty or perform a needed repair. Then it happens. The silent rapture. Giorgione's compassion. The delicate portrait's of the Holbien's. Or the exquisite draftsmanship of Rembrandt contained in two volumes of drawings that remain hidden from public view (the only glimpse, a catalogue entry) in the stack.

The stack is an intrigue in the library. The quiet there is as heavy as the total wieght of the tomes held there. It is not open to the public for browsing. The items there require a request from a patron to be retrieved by a librarian.

Sometimes it is my duty to replace returned items to the stack. I think one day I may never come back from there, swallowed by a path into a naive grove of Rousseau.

Someone shouts 'STACK!' to warn that the compactus of shelves is about to close and reopen at another Dewey location. My reverie is destroyed. My heart jumps. This is not a safe place to read, but, I continue to do it. The attraction is irresistible.

Looking, looking at the roster. How many desks shifts today? Two full ones. Half the day gone. Check in, check out. Anything else? Something extra? Phones to answer? Cassettes to put away? Ah! today I am stack. How many is there? Sometimes none. Sometimes too many for one to put away. Not too many today. Old psychology, dated social studies. War and Peace. (Classics live in the stack.) Woodworking for ... what's this down the bottom? Dark, large, heavy.

Today an academic library. Searching for answers to university questions.

Across town on the bus. Walk through Chinatown, off toward the fish market. The library already.

Through the automatic doors. Swipe ID at the gates. Only those with a mission are allowed in here. Up the spiral stairs central to the building. Such beautiful proportion. Each step the perfect height for the rise of the foot - I might be walking across a wide flat plain - yet up I go. Stop at the doors to the 000's. Around the corner to the 025's. Guess the subject of my study? How does Dewey describe it....? Find the entry in DDC 21.

But not for long, will I study this. Soon I will immerse my brain , my blood, my senses whole, into a study of art long since past. The fine proportions of Renaissance Man, a twisted crush of Baroque, calm still structures of the classical, then on to a jarring smash of the contempory.

I exit the library. Answers in my backpack. Now early evening. I turn down the hill to the produce market. There, I will meet Pieter Bruegel and his brother 'Velvet'.

Hush.

(left to right) By Bruegel:Painter and Connoisseur,Horse Trader,Summertime,Big Fish and Little Fish

Stairs pitch down into the market. A Bruegel painting presents itself. 'The Fight Between Carnival and Lent', p.57 in a volume in by Stechow. Warm dark, gold, viridian, vermillion, rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. A serious type of humour. Just as serious as the produce sellers shouting velly sweet, veeelly sweet, CHEAPER, CHEAPER, one dollar, one dollar, one dollar, repeated so fast as to be one word. Moving away from Pieter the Elder toward the flower stall. It is the image of a book in Stack. Quiet descends. I step into the detail of Plate 2, V 'Bouquet in a Blue Vase ("Tulip, Bouquet"), p. 26. Blooms tremble with fragile light. A moth quivers, petals tiny, sheer. Each miniature brushstroke building the plush. The man behind the scene of flowers? 'Velvet' is his name. A lover's dream. A man of flowers at times called 'Flower'. In the Stack that book, 'Jan "Flower" Bruegel' you shall find floral delights and insects humming. See the detail of 'Sheaf of Flowers' in a Wooden Bucket ("Crown Imperial Bouquet")' p.11.Which brother to choose? Neither should be left behind. Both will be added to my collection today.

Thursday. The library celebrated my birthday. It was on Tuesday. On that day I was toasted by my friends at drawing class. Champagne to announce, good cheer, sentiments to move, arousement of thought. Thought that happens when watching Kokoschaka's Tigon, great, orange, golden, glowing - savage to the core forced outward from depths of blue and green. Like cake of gold. Striations of bitter marmalade oranges. The cake devoured in lip smacking silence. Cake made for my birthday. Tigon cake. Less savage than murdering a deer as Tigon did.

A book on Kokoschka, squeezed in on the shelf. A plain aqua cover. Library binding stout, strong. Clues to the contents, title and Dewey Q759.2 KOK. It speaks of nothing. Instant attraction. I know these covers. Open it up. Whole page reproductions fall out in your lap. Plate 25 'Portrait of Karl Kraus'. Read Kokoschaka's comments recorded by Olda, his wife. Discover the significance of the 'nocturnal butterfly' flipping about.

Wild brushstrokes of paintings that have taken three years to produce, others two hours.

A gauze of lace. Plate 5 'Portrait of the Marquise de Rohan-Montesquieu. A butterfly pinned to her breast. Is it the same as in Plate 25? This time to announce 'people at death's door' ?

Echoes of Schiele in long knotted hands, Plate 2 Portrait of Adolf Loos. Klimt walks through too in long elongation, Plate 5 Portrait of the Marquise de Rohan-Montesquieu.

How is it loose brushstrokes become what they are? The beckoning hand of the Marabout of Temacine, Plate 32, fold upon fold of his African dress or the suit coat with kerchief of Marcel Von Nemes Plate 33 ?

Bonnard. Bonnard? Why was I looking at a book on Bonnard? The attraction and pleasure. What better excuse? There are others I know. Just now it detracts and relieves from the great lift and heave that is proper tidying the Quartos. The shelves do not suit the height or the weight of these oversized books. Books full of pictures tumble and slide, rocks down a cliff, unpredictable they bounce. Chunk, thunk painful they fall.

I caught the bright green and opened it's cover.

It's Marthe, his wife. All refractions, reflections, of light plays on water.

Bathwater slaps while 'doing' her legs.

'Pink Nude in the Bathtub' Plate 32 p. 94

Drying her toes 'Nude , Right Leg Raised' Plate 33 p.96 then a plunge in the temperature of 'Large Nude in Blue' Plate 34 p.98

'The Bath' Plate 35. Marthe lies in sweet contemplation, covered in water, soaking her thoughts. An elegant stretch right down to her toes and Marthe becomes 'Nude in the Bath' Plate 42 p.114. One thousand little tiles stuck fast to the floor. I feel my own toes push into the grooves. Roughness of grout, sharp corners of tiles.

Now three o'clock. An hour of tidying, has gone, in a ................splash.

Monday morning doing a regular tidy of the reference library. Doing a maintanence check. How many broken crowns? How many disintegrated covers? Books in wrong places. Dewey would frown. Stay away from the 759's. Tend to the travel section. Turkey in Nice, Boliva in Pakistan, Alaska on the floor, Russia shoved down the back, pinned against the wall!On my repair list 423, The Oxford English Dictionary, Géricault's Medusa, Poussin..... Ah! Back at the art section, it's like a magnet. Such beautiful items out here on the Reference floor.

Wait a minute - What's this? Yellowed bit of paper marking a place. Thoughtless person messing up in the library. No.....no, they are not. They are pointing the way.

......again I return.I am not meant to be here.It draws irresistably.What happens when it's discovered that I've gone from my post?Deemed irresponsible, uncommitted.....but to what?I want to go back to my grandmother's kitchen and compare Fantin to Chardin. Still-life. Still. How can it be still? Humid roses are wilting in motion. I see them collapse into a gentle sweet heap.I pass from the kitchen to the back of the garage. Covered in flowers, bricks piled high.Now I can climb them when last time I couldn't. Growth must have happened since my last visit to Grandma. Plate 75 full of Nasturtiums. Orange and yellow. White milky sap with that particular scent that sticks to those flowers.My aunties and uncles say there are snakes. But no, not here, just burning hot bricks, under the sun, a couple of lizards, and nasturtiums to spare.

The story teller, he wore a tiger suit. Upon the seat beside him, a great whiskered mask, the head. Deadly glitter of blue glass eyes, turned up toward the sky.

Rousseau, he wore that tiger suit, it's head clamped tightly on. He told great tales striped with truth of a different ilk.

I sat absorbed in the stripey tale, recalling the first time I saw the pictures made by Rousseau. Agog with the colour and images of Eden I fell into the dream of 'The Sleeping Gypsy', Plate XI, unaware of the lion kissing my shoulder. I puzzle over the 'Snake Charmer', Plate XX, so dark, lost to difinition, he played under the moon to the spoonbilled(?) flamingo, two tiny parrots, and a number of serpents. Great jungles bloomed, inaccurate of scale, shaken with violence as 'Tiger Attacking a Buffalo', Figure 61, sated his desire.

Next day at the library, high and low, I searched. Books on Rousseau, the catalogue told me were available... but where? On the shelf - not there. In the stack... elsewhere. Two in the reverence library of excellent quality, but those, I should not take to consume and stare.

Return to the catalogue, it tells of more. Again, in the Stack. This is just a tall tale of Rousseau. I look and look. Guessing all possible miss-placings. With monkey grip I make it to the top shelf in Stack.... and... finally..... where it had run amok, a book on Rousseau. Out of place, and poor quality I know. Too many black and whites for such a genius of colour. But I can take it away and gloat for a few hours. Dream the dream the gypsy dreams, embrace the lion, drink the wine and play that lute.

There is a book, one particular book in my local library that stands out, all alone.

I borrow it again, again always again. It is hard to return it again and again. I say I don't need it but I want it, to look at for ever and ever and ever.

Drawing upon drawing, reveals passion and skill.

Each time I look, how the images change. They look out at me harder, their eloquence louder. Evermore beautiful than they were before.

The stare of the Amazon, page 88, is found to begin development from page 425- 431. Her gaze is captured then transformed in finality, on page 88. How handsome she is with that contemptuous air.

Single fluid lines struck down onto paper, accurate, sure.

Watch the model dance through her poses on page 142-149.

Then there is Harlequin as trapeze artist, Figure 100, p.186, looking out from behind his net. Unfaltering blue crayon traces his diamonds and tells of his mood.He beckons to me to come join his act. Refuse, I cannot.

This special book two inches thick sports a cover of soft paper. Though secured with stitching it would be better be bound inside hard covers. Then drawings from the collection of Paul Alexandere would never be lost.....whose drawings are those? Modigliani, no doubt.

What conversation is she engaged in?
Leaning on her elbows, fingertips touched lightly to her face, poised ready to gesticulate.
The silky rustle of her black and white dress contrasts to the noise of the cloth on the table. A spider leg fringe on the end of her sleeve, tickles the crease in the hook of her elbow.
The intense blue background o mediterrnanean heat forces her image forward to us.
Look in those eyes of flat, matt brown - liquid and large. Her mindis on other things not in the present while her hands chat with her partner out of the picture.
Painted lips, pressed tightly together rest paitently over dimpled chin. Her husband must love her. She is beautiful and chic. But she left.
Gone like the pages brutally cut from this. If I cannot repair it, it too will be gone. The collection diminished.
To view Mme Dufy, turn to page 100 of the item referenced below.
Reference
Title: Dufy
Author: Werner, Alfred
Publisher:Thames and Hudson, 1973, London.
ISBN:0 500 08026 7
Dewey: Q 759.4 DUF
Hush.

I push my trolley along the isles on a regular shelving trip. I come the to the end of the non-fiction and stop, looking upward.
Great orange sheets of plastic cascade. It is a grand descent from two stories high to the dust speckled carpet under my feet.
What is this happening inside of my library?
The wall is gone, and door has changed it's location. There is drilling and hammering and sawing and talking. Workmen muffle their voices, afterall, they are in a library you know.
Planned change becoming reality.
How wil it be this new, Young Adult area? Adult Lending and the Childrens Library as one.
Later, the workmen gone and the library not open as yet, I go behind the plastic curtain and peer directly up to the sky.The lines of the ceiling have altered somehow, though this cannot be.I crunch through dried paint flakes and exit the scene. Now what do I see? A quarter of the Childrens Collection neatly crammed all carefully labelled, into it's Reference Room. Does the Childrens Librarian weep? Or will she find this new thing good?
Change upon change. How will it be?
Hush.

Well! What has been done to my library?
Roadworks brought inside. Cyclone fencing, green mesh shade cloth and concrete blocks.
A drill, a saw, a hammer. Shattered peace, bouncing from hard surfaces.
Make shift circulation, readers advice crammed in, The Children's Library invaded and old people disorientated.
And for what.
An unfuctional desk combining all service delivery.
Still - it is here now.
We will make it work.
Hush.

Away, away from the madness and anger.
I leave the others screeching about routine destruction. They are right. But I, away, away.
To the stack I retreat. To a favorite I return. In the quiet I settle.
I take down the Giorgione. A form almost square against other books there. On the cover a serene visage. One of 'The Three Philosophers', Plate 42. Gentle, deep and sublte thought. Gaze of abstract thought, unfocused, silent and intense. His stillness comes to me. Ah! this is what I seek.
I turn the thick, pulpy pages. Their thick rough, texture satisfying under my fingers. They feel like the sun has been shining upon them. Stone coloured paper faded to tea stained edges. Each plate glued in leaving it free on three sides, to shrink and expand.
The spine is breaking.
I turn the page, Judith (Plate 29) has calmly killed. Such soft, subtle colours. An elegant leg exposed by crackling silk. A bare foot holds still, the severed head.
Plate37, Portrait of a Girl with a laurel Branch:'Laura', is the picture I turn to again and again.
She is well fed.
Fur lined robes caress her skin. Wisping silk curls down from her head, over her shoulders, around her breast. A pink nipple disclosed. 'Laura' reveals her breast, loosening that soft, soft gown.
She is a courtesan-poetess, laurel branches a symbol of her poetic art is the story I hear.
What poem did she write there in the laurel grove? I think... it is whispered in silence, upon a gentle breeze.
Hush.
Title: Giorgione
Author: Baldass, Ludwig
Publisher: Thames and Hudson, London,1965
Dewey No.: Q 759.531 GIO

Maillol.
I collected the pages and tapped them back in.
Repair is required.
Glue down the spine, a page at a time.
This will fit neatly into my backpack.
Looking through the pages my fingers rasp, brushed on rough terracotta. The dryness rings. The air is brittle, humidity gone.
Intimate, small sculpture.
The 'Squatting Bather' she examines her toes. I want to pick her up, turn her over in my hands, feel the hollow weight and the dryness of clay.
There is tall brone 'Pomona', sixty three inches high with beautiful thick strong thighs. She stands in the Tuileries. So does the 'Mountain' with great thickness of limb, her hair waving away.
Oh! and then there is 'Sorrow' with her hand to her cheek - I walk out of the Tuileries
and into Repairs,
back to earth and the business of work.
ReferenceTitle: Maillol
Author: Chevalier, Denys
Publisher: The Uffici Press, Lugano, 1970
Dewey No.: Q 730.944
Hush.

Oh my. Charles Blackman.
Where have I been?
I want to be with him to see 'Bellevue Hill at Night', plate 121
and watch 'Rainforest : The Cicada's Flight', plate200, spattering across the page
To squeeze the struggling cat and take it from the bulging eyed 'Girl with a Black Cat',plate20,
mingle with the 'Lurking Figures', plate22, in the long dark shadows cast by a light of night,
touch the softness of 'Robin', plate 198,
then slip, in a silent rush through a fall of water with a 'Water Sprit', plate 18, in another book.
ReferenceTitle: The Art of Charles Blackman
Author: Thomas Shapcott
Publisher: Andre Deutsh Limited, London, 1989
ISBN: 0 233 98 440 2
Dewey: R 759.994 BLA
Another BookTitle: Rainforest Charles Blackman
Author: Al Alvarez
Publisher: McMillian, South Melbourne,1988
ISBN: 0 333 47711 1
Dewey: R 759.994 BLA

I found Paris Dreaming, slumbering beneath the skylight, in gentle soft, soft light. I looked for her before but nowhere was she found.
Reference Folio Stack, at 9444.3 was where she was meant to be but when I went to that address, tha place did not exist. I followed all the catalouge trails, looking upon the shelves in Reference and at odd though appropriate, addresses, everyone erroneous, deshaeartening, dark, darker and lonely - land of lost books.
I gave up my quest and left you thinking all was wasted effort.
Then one day as I was tidying, something caught my eye.
That particular type face did not match the other out turned spines. It moved with life entirely own its own.
Could it be and what did it matter anyway? Many books get lost, deleted, damaged. digarded and destroyed.
Cultural value disregarded - it did not fit the shelf.
My hand went to it all by itself. I thought I had lost my beautiful obsession.
Its like magic this attraction I have.
Blackman went to Paris and drew a poem of love
People coffe cats and cups
All reflected in 'The Charcuterie Window, (p.36)
And swallowed in 'L'aperitif", (p.35)
The 'After-dinner Cigarette', (p.37)
and then held so close in
'The embrace', (p.81)
Title:Charles Blackman Paris Dreaming: A Celebration of a City of the Imagination.
Author: The Paris Drawings of Charles Blackman Written and Compiled by Nadine Amadio
Dewey No.: RF 944.36 BLA
Publisher: AH and AW Reed Pty. Ltd. Frenchs Forest NSW, 1982.
ISBN: 0 589 50331 6

IN HONOR OF DEWEY

The inventor of the Dewey Decimal Classification system, used in library's world wide, was the original passionate librarian. He helped found the American Library Association, and the first school to train professional librarians. He is even credited with inventing the vertical office filing cabinet.

He established the system of travelling library's to rural areas, and library collections of (and loaning of) non-book reference material such as pictures.

His great goal was to reform the English language. He is responsible for many of the simplified American spellings such as the word 'catalog' which is 'catalogue' in British English.